


and all I loved, I loved alone

by someawkwardprose



Series: Gifts [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Dealing With Loss, Depression, F/M, In Memory of Carrie Fisher, Leia Organa-centric, POV Leia Organa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 08:18:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9313202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someawkwardprose/pseuds/someawkwardprose
Summary: In which Leia has too much to grieve for, and too little to smile for.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ComteDeLaDoneWithTheWorld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComteDeLaDoneWithTheWorld/gifts).



> this is a gift for my wonderful [internet wife](http://tonystarkdefencesquad.tumblr.com/) who's had a shitty few weeks, and is also dedicated to my space mum who is no longer with us. miss you, Carrie. 
> 
> title is from an Edgar Allen Poe quote _"From childhood's hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone."_
> 
> enjoy?

_Luke’s smiling, properly, and it’s a sight so rare nowadays that Leia cherishes it, grinning right back at her brother. Chewie carries little Ben on his shoulders, and he’s only three years old and a handful, demanding and grumpy, using the Force to get his toys despite Leia confiscating them, but she loves him so, so much. C3PO is bickering with R2D2 in the background, and the noise is familiar and comforting, as comforting as the arm Han slides over her shoulders as he brushes his lips against her temple. She looks back at him fondly, and thinks - this is it. This is her family._

Leia wakes up shivering.

It’s not even a nightmare. Just a memory, buried and forgotten in the sands of time and the fog of her mind. It’s somehow worse than a nightmare, though, as she wakes up to the empty ache in her heart where she used to feel Han.

There’ll be no chance of getting back to sleep now.

_It’s only an hour until sunrise, might as well get up,_ she thinks, hauling herself out of the tangle of her bedsheets. Her joints groan and crack like the glaciers surrounding the royal palace, back on Alderaan, and she winces. Her age is catching up with her, reminding her that she’s no longer the spunky nineteen year old carrying a message to her father’s old friend. She’s not as agile as she once was, and the strain of the past few years has weighed heavily on her. But it won’t do to show her people that, so she grits her teeth and shuffles into the dressing room to get ready for the day.

* * *

 

Poe is exactly where she expects him to be - in the medical wing, watching over the ex-stormtrooper, Finn.

“General Organa!” He smiles at her, but she can tell he’s tired. He ought to sleep more, but she knows he won’t until his friend has woken up. Leia remembers being in his position - with Luke in Hoth, Han more times than she could count, even Chewie once or twice. She won’t tell him off.

He’d only ignore her anyway.

“Any change?” She asks gently, squeezing his shoulder supportively. She knew there wouldn’t be - the boy was still asleep after all, but her chest aches to see Poe’s face fall. He’s, well. Not like a son, but what she could imagine her son could have been, free from the pull of the Dark Side.

“Well, his brain activity seems to be improving, they say,” Poe tries to sound optimistic, but it’s weighing heavily on him. She can sympathise.

“He’ll wake up when he’s ready.”

Poe nods, and she releases his shoulder. He looks at the prone form of the boy before him, only the steady rise and fall of his chest distinguishing him from a corpse, and steels himself.

“Well, I best get back to work. I’ll see you later, General.” He salutes, as he always does, despite her protests, and walks away, BB8 - and she must be getting old if she’s only just noticed the droid - trailing behind him, drooping.

Taking one last look at the stormtrooper who saved the rebellion, Leia follows.

* * *

The girl - Rey, had left almost two weeks ago, taking Chewie - Leia’s oldest close friend with her. She knows the pair will find Luke - Luke pretty much led them to him. She just hopes they’ll convince Luke to come home.

At first, she had been angry at Luke, for thinking that he could run away from all his problems, for abandoning her, and leaving her with the tatters of her family. But she’s changed a lot since then - and she’s still angry, but she’s mostly resigned. Luke never had the role models she did. Obi-Wan, as good of a man as he was, had abandoned Luke when Luke needed him, even if he’d stuck around through the Force. Yoda, from what Luke told her, had tried to just die to get out of answering Luke’s questions, and if that didn’t sum up the Jedi’s flare for the dramatic, nothing did. Even their father, based on what they had found out together, had joined the Dark Side rather than admit that he’d made a mistake in trusting the Emperor.

At least Luke had apologised, before he left. _I’m - oh Leia, I’m so sorry._ He’d looked so beaten down - so tragically broken, and she felt like her ribs had been wrenched apart. Her son, her beloved Ben - no, he couldn’t have _no, No, NO_. Han had tried to comfort her, but she shoved him away with a snarl and stormed out. When she returned, Luke was gone, and Leia was left with a husband who was distant and a Solo - Skywalker shaped hole in her heart.

Now her son was still being poisoned by the Dark and Han...Han was gone and he was never coming back, and it was Ben’s fault. Now she had only the hope that one day she would see her brother again, and together they could destroy the remnants of the Empire, once and for all.

* * *

 

There’s a holo of Senator Amidala in the war room. Officially, it’s to honour the woman who was a martyr for the rebellion. Unofficially, Leia can’t have a photo of a woman she never knew beside a photo of her adoptive parents, who she knew loved her without restrictions.

She looks proud, and strong, with a sharp smile. Naboo, her home planet, surrounded her, and Leia can’t help but feel a connection with her. But Padmè Amidala most strongly resembles Luke, with the fire in her eyes and the goodness in her heart. Leia isn’t quite sure what that means to her.

In the background, two Jedi stand as bodyguards. You wouldn’t notice it at first, not if you weren’t looking. But Luke had told her, who they were. Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker.

Despite knowing he was her biological father, Leia can’t quite see Darth Vader as anyone other than Emperor's right hand man. She knows he was a compassionate man, once, who got lured to the Dark Side in an attempt to protect his pregnant wife. But she can’t reconcile the long haired boy and the monster who tried to torture the location of the rebel base from her.

She couldn’t see the Anakin Skywalker in Darth Vader, or the Kylo Ren in her son.

* * *

Darkness has long since fallen on the base when Leia finally drags herself back to her quarters. The single light beside her bed cannot reach far enough to chase the shadows from the room, and she can feel the chill of winter creeping inside, the dampness clinging to walls. She’d hoped to get some reading done - tactical plans on an assault of old Empire strongholds, places that might have been supplying the First Order - but she can’t find the will to. She reaches over to flick off the light - and her hand hits the switch beside it.

Suddenly her father’s eyes glow from a holo, drawing her to the cluster of memories she had tucked out of sight. Her mother is looking at the young version of Leia, fondly, reaching her hand out to catch Bail’s. The Organa’s look happy - happier than Leia has felt in years, but she isn’t fooled. Six months after, she’d watched the destruction of Alderaan.

Beside it, Ben glared sullenly, ignoring Han who had a hand on his shoulder, laughing at something Leia had said out of the picture. Luke had a smile on his face, subdued, but there. Leia can see her hair - looser than it had been during the war, floating in front of Han’s face. She’s glad she can’t see herself properly.

  
The faces of her past stare at her from the corner, and Leia resigns herself to another night of restlessness, being haunted by the memories of what she’d lost.


End file.
